Letter to the editor: 'Simple math' on guns is simply not true

Doris Render's claim that "simple math" shows that "the more guns that are out there in the hands of ordinary people, the more ordinary people are going to get shot by guns" is demonstrably false.

From 1993 to 2011, the number of privately owned firearms in America increased from 190 million to over 300 million. During that same period, the FBI Uniform Crime Reports show that the annual number of firearm homicides in America declined by 50 percent, from 17,075 to 8,583. This dramatic decline in firearms murders was confirmed by the Pew Research Center earlier this year.

These results are consistent with the conclusion in the spring 2007 issue of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, that, in the U.S. and Europe, lower homicide rates are associated with jurisdictions with higher rates of gun ownership.

- Donald W. Bohlken, Indianola

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Letter to the editor: 'Simple math' on guns is simply not true

Doris Render's claim that 'simple math' shows that 'the more guns that are out there in the hands of ordinary people, the more ordinary people are going to get shot by guns' is demonstrably false.